This invention relates to inspection equipment for inspecting mainly bottled products and cylindrical products such as medicines (phials and ampuls) and foods (bottled drinking water) for appearance, dimension and defect.
Up to now, a variety of inspection equipments has been proposed to inspect for foreign matter in ampuls and phials. For example, Japanese Patent laid-open publication No. 11416/1982 discloses inspection equipment which rotates rapidly a transparent container filled with a liquid, then suddenly stops the container, irradiates a light beam to the container, receives the light beam by a light detector behind the container, and detects foreign matter which is kept rotated and suspended within the contained liquid Japanese Patent laid-open publication No. 183351/1984 also discloses ampul inspection equipment which rotates rapidly an ampul with the axis of the ampul being as a rotation center while the ampul is held by a pair of upper and lower holders of an inspection drum, the equipment then suddenly stops the ampul, and inspects the ample for nondefective or defective product while the ample is irradiated with a transmission light beam in a specified direction to be imaged by a television camera.
However, in the inspection equipment disclosed by the above patents, the transparent container and ampul must be held from their upper and lower side by a holder to rotate and transfer them. Thus the ampul has not been able to be inspected from its upper and lower side, making an appearance test over its whole surface impossible. The holder also has obstructed inspection such that a lighting device has not been able to approach near these products to cause a high-brightness and uniform lighting over their whole surface to become possible, leading to difficulty in performing a high-accuracy inspection.
Inspection equipment to inspect phials has been placed on the market. The equipment, as shown in FIGS. 16 and 17, holds a phial 70 by a pair of bars 71 and 71 with the phial assuming a inclined posture, allows a rotating roll 72 to rotate on the side of the phial 70, arranges a large number of the phials 70 in a line while the phials 70 are allowed to be rotated, and transfers them continuously to an inspection station where visual inspection is performed.
However, in such transfer arrangement, the phial 70 has been held on its side, so that the held part of the phial has not been able to be inspected and the phial has had the possibility of being crushed when inspected due to insufficient holding of the phial 70. For this reason, the equipment has not been able to be used for automatic inspection.